


Acceptable Loss

by BrighteyedJill



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Prostitution, Asthma, Dubious Consent, Fisting, M/M, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Prostitution, Role Reversal, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-07
Updated: 2015-07-26
Packaged: 2018-04-08 02:05:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4286544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrighteyedJill/pseuds/BrighteyedJill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An urgent mission for the Howlies leaves Auxiliary Second Class Steve Rogers in the lurch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Restricted Work] by [stoatsandwich](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stoatsandwich/pseuds/stoatsandwich). Log in to view. 



> If you're late to the game, 4F is an AU in which Steve never got the serum, and so signed up to be a "prophylactic auxiliary" (i.e. Army-sponsored prostitute) and has been embedded with the Howling Commandos, led by one Sergeant Bucky Barnes.
> 
> Inspired by stoatsandwiches magnificently heartbreaking [4F 'verse. ](http://stoatsandwich.tumblr.com/tagged/4f+meta) Thank you to jaune_chat for being my perennial beta, rubynye for squeeing with me, and stoatsandwich for pointing me towards great historical resources.
> 
> And don't worry, later chapters will have more actual porn!

_September 1944_

They'd hiked into Toul-Croix De Metz less than 24 hours ago, but already the bustle of the place is starting to give Bucky an itch under his skin. The engineers have been blowing up mines in the airfield all day, which makes it impossible for the Howlies to get any shut-eye. Units are constantly moving in and out, some setting up tents as personnel numbers swell beyond the capacity of the handful of barracks the Germans left standing. Ambulances are busy running casualties to the planes taking off from the one functioning airstrip. It’s not a place Bucky would have chosen for his guys to take a rest if Morita hadn’t received that radio message instructing them to rendezvous with Colonel Phillips. 

In any case, today hasn’t been a total loss. Gabe and Dernier have cleaned and repaired almost every important piece of equipment. Monty hung up a clothesline, and everyone has dry socks. Rogers spent the afternoon helping everyone blow off some restless energy. Now, having done everything there is to do while waiting, the men are sprawled out against the wall of the shack they’ve been given to bunk in, half-heartedly playing cards. 

Seated a few feet away under a tree almost as scrawny as he is, Rogers has his sketchbook and pencil out. Every few seconds he looks up to squint at the Howlies in the bright sunshine, then goes back to his drawing. Bucky sidles over to the tree, hoping for a glimpse at the page, but Steve slams the book closed when Bucky gets within a few feet. 

“Rogers,” Bucky says, casual-like, as if he hadn’t been trying to sneak a peek. “You going to see the doc today?”

“Yes.” Rogers tucks the pencil into his pocket. “He told me to wait until they get this last plane off.”

Bucky glances towards the landing strip. With painful slowness, litter bearers are climbing aboard a C-47. He’s glad they’re too far away to see the wounded; enough blood seeps into his dreams as it is. He looks back at Rogers. “Well, pack your stuff up before you go. If we’re lucky, we’ll move out tonight.”

“Yes, Sarge.” Rogers jumps to his feet and heads for the clothesline just as Dugan comes crunching up the gravel path.

“Sarge!” Dugan calls. “Colonel’s here.”

“Thank Christ,” Bucky mutters. He waves down the Howlies, who’ve started to climb to their feet. “Hang tight, boys, and be ready to move. I’ll bring back the marching orders. Dum-Dum, with me.” Everyone nods, even Rogers, who’s stopped beside the others, serious-eyed and stoic. “Rogers, make sure the doc gives you more of those asthma cigarettes, yeah?”

“Yes, Sarge.” Rogers doesn’t quite roll his eyes, but it’s a near thing.

Bucky strides off with Dugan at his side. They pass the orderly outside Major Driscoll’s concrete bunker of an office with a crisp salute. Dugan props himself up against the wall outside while Bucky ducks into the building.

Inside, Driscoll, the insufferable windbag, stands next to Colonel Phillips, who’s leaning over a camp table strewn with maps. Lanterns set on every available surface dispel the gloom that clings to the room even on a bright afternoon like this one. 

“They’ll be gone in a week,” Phillips is saying. “It’s now or never.” He waves Bucky over. “Look. We got new aerial recon says this here’s a Squid outpost. Been seeing a lot of truck traffic. Could be stockpiling, could be distributing.”

“We’re blowing it up?” Bucky traces his hand over the map, looking for a likely way in through all those damn mountains.

“After you find out what they’re working on.” Phillips shoots Bucky a stern look. “Don’t light up until you’ve got the intelligence.”

“There’s a road straight to their door.” Driscoll points to a dark line on the map. “We have a tank division we can send in to support—“

“Tanks are no good,” Bucky says, cutting him off. “They’d hear us coming, dig in or evacuate, and we’d never get what we want.” No, there has to be a better way. If only they had a better map—he’ll have to ask Steve to draw one after the mission.

“That’s one way of thinking.” Beside him, Driscoll steps closer to the table, blocking the light. “But Sergeant, I think you’ll find—“

“An air drop.” Bucky turns to Phillips. “Get us in tonight, twilight. We’ll be quiet, go in fast, and they don’t get a chance to call for help.”

“Colonel, with all due respect—“ Driscoll begins.

“Barnes is right. Stealth’s what we need on this one.” Phillips turns to Bucky. “How many you need?”

“How big’s the base?”

“Hard to say.” Phillips digs out another small paper from the pile, this one a blurry aerial surveillance photo. “Looks like they’re trying to keep it under the radar, minimal personnel. No artillery we’ve seen. Gotta assume they’re loaded for bear, though.”

“Yes, sir.” The thought of regular soldiers facing down blue-glowing Hydra guns, maybe picking one up themselves, makes Bucky shake his head. “Just my guys, then. They know the drill, know how to handle the tech.”

“I have two squads of paratroopers sitting on their thumbs,” Driscoll said. “If we—“

Phillips waves him into silence. “Barnes’ men will move faster on their own, Major.”

“When?” Bucky asks. The tactics are already building themselves into a sort of plan in his head. 

“Soon as I can get a plane in the air.” Phillips spins toward a harassed-looking orderly. “Randolph, get on the horn.”

Bucky leaves Phillips to his work and ducks out of the bunker to find Dugan wearing a fierce grin. “Eavesdropping, soldier?”

“Just listening to you stomp all over the Major’s toes. We moving out?”

“Yep. Get the guys ready. Tell Dernier to bring some good toys.” Bucky will make sure Phillips gets his documents, but he doesn’t plan to leave anything for Hydra to re-take later. “This is a night drop, enemy territory. We might have to fight our way back here after.”

“Sure thing.” Dugan catches Bucky’s arm before we can turn away. “Sarge, what about Rogers?”

Bucky blinks. He tries to picture Rogers jumping out of a plane, landing on those twig legs of his. He might be a tough little shit, but he doesn’t have the training. Bucky shakes his head. “I’ll take care of it.”

While Dugan trots off down the path, Bucky ducks back inside to find Phillips standing next to the radio. He shoots a quick glance over at Driscoll, who seems to be quietly fuming over the maps, then leans in and lowers his voice. “Sir, my squad has a pro boy detailed. Permission for him to sit this one out on base.”

“This the boy you picked up in London?” Phillips raises an eyebrow. “Hasn’t got himself shot yet?”

“Same one, sir.” Bucky gropes for something he can tell Phillips about Rogers. Not that he’d take Rogers to the ends of the earth if he could, or that he’ll murder anyone who touches Rogers while he’s gone, or that sometimes he wakes up hard thinking of kissing that thin, smart mouth. “He’s been useful.”

“I’ll bet,” Phillips snorts. “Fine. We’ll keep him squared away for you.” He slams his palm against the side of the radio, which is spitting static. “Major, you got any equipment that ain’t been gnawed to death by rats?”  
\--

When Steve returns to the shack-cum-barracks, the Howlies and all of their equipment are gone. His haversack sits by the door, listing slightly. That must mean they’ve received orders and are forming up somewhere. Determined not to slow them down, Steve grabs his pack and jogs at his fastest pace towards the command bunker, Barnes’ last-known whereabouts. 

Colonel Phillips is climbing into a jeep just as Steve reaches the bunker. He pauses in mid-stride and shakes his head in Steve’s direction. “I’ll be damned. They did keep you alive.”

“Sir?” Steve pulls up short, unsure of whether he should salute.

“Go on in. Major Driscoll’ll get you sorted.” Phillips waves him on his way.

The orderly outside looks Steve up and down, but lets him pass. Hefting his pack, Steve descends the three steps into the cool, dark interior of the bunker. His eyes take a few seconds to adjust to the dim lamplight before he can see the major sitting at a small table in the corner. 

“Sir.” Steve throws a crisp salute, hoping to make up for his stature in terms of respectability. “You wanted to see me?”

“Rogers, is it? Have a seat, son.”

Steve sits gingerly on the camp stool across the table. He wants to ask what this is all about, and if he’s in trouble. More than that, he wants to ask where the Howlies are, because he doesn’t want any more ribbing from Dugan about his legs being too short to get anywhere on time. But instead, he sets his pack on the floor and sits with his hands on his knees, polite like his mama taught him.

Driscoll pours something from a flask into a metal cup, but Steve shakes his head when Driscoll tips the flask towards him. A long sip draws out the silence between them until Driscoll says, “We need to talk about your reassignment.”

 _Reassignment_. The word rings through Steve’s head like mortar blast, knocking him just as flat. It's several seconds before he manages to choke out, “Sir?”

“Sergeant Barnes and his squad moved out on their next mission. I promised him I’d find you a new assignment.”

“Sir...” Ringing drowns out his hearing, like there really has been a blast. He remembers Barnes’ face a few hours ago, grinning as he tried to catch a look at Steve’s journal. “I…” At Driscoll’s impassive expression, he marshals his composure. “I’m sorry. Why did—Was my performance unsatisfactory?”

“Well.” Driscoll leans back in his chair and laces his hands together across his ample belly. “Let’s just say there were concerns about your ability to keep up.”

Steve pictures all the hours he slogged along at the back of the line with Gabe or Monty slowing their pace to keep him company. Or his occasional bad days, with unending coughs shaking his chest, when Barnes called halts the rest of the squad didn’t need. Or the nights Barnes would take one look at him after a hard march and declare shop closed up for the night, so that the Howlies went without. All that hadn’t seemed to bother Barnes. Or maybe he just hadn’t let on. “Am…” Steve swallows hard. “Am I getting assigned to a new unit, sir?”

“To be frank, son, there aren’t many who think it’s worth babysitting an auxiliary in the field, no matter the… perks.” Driscoll runs his eyes down Steve’s skinny form, then takes a sip from his cup.

After all this time, Steve didn’t think he has any blush left in him, but he colors at that. He thinks of mending socks, drawing maps, digging latrines. Of hot blood dripping over the knife in his hands when he’d killed his first Squid, and of the grins on the Howlies’ faces when they saw him alive. Of Bucky calling him Stevie when he’s out of his mind and about to come. “I see.”

“I can ship you back to a pro station behind the lines, though an escort might be—“

“Sir,” Steve charges in before Driscoll can finish. “I’d like to stay at the front.”

“What for?”

“I signed up to serve, same as the rest of these men.” The war had felt far away, back in London, where he’d been warm and dry most of the time, and gotten chaperoned on walks like a school girl. With the Howlies, he’d helped, he knows he did, even if it hadn’t been enough for them to want to keep him. Steve straightens his spine and looks Driscoll in the eye. “I want to be where I can do the most good, sir.”

Driscoll returns his gaze for a long moment, then sighs. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do, son. I’ll put you on a rotation with the units operating out of my base. Give you a fair shot. End of the month, if none of the squad leaders have agreed to take you on, I pack you up with the wounded, send you back to London.”

“Yes, sir,” Steve says immediately. He’ll take even a chance to make himself useful, in the hopes that someone sees something in him the way Barnes had. Or used to, anyway. “Thank you, sir.”

“Good. That’s settled.” Driscoll tugs a piece of paper out of a stack on the desk and begins to write.

As he does, Steve’s mind puzzles over the logistics, trying to work out how things will be different here than they were with the Howlies. “Sir? There’s procedures, equipment we usually use.”

“Equipment?” Driscoll doesn’t take his eyes from the paper.

“Prophylaxis kits. And contact logs. To prevent the spread of VD. With more soldiers—“

“Son,” Driscoll says, still writing, “That may be how they do things at the pro stations, but we’re in a war zone, here. My boys are out there every day beating the Nazis back, and they deserve some R&R without having to fill out a damn form every time they want to get their dicks wet.”

“Sir—“

“Frankly, son, I’m a little irritated at having this mess dropped in my lap when there are a hundred more important things I could be doing.” Driscoll finally looks up and pins Steve with a glare that looks black in the feeble lamp light. “No one has time to coddle a fairy that’s here as a toy for the real soldiers. Now I suggest you get with the program. Understood?”

Steve clenches his jaw and resolutely does not say any of the dozen things he desperately wants to. He is getting a chance to prove himself, and he will do it no matter what Driscoll thinks. “Yes, sir.”

“Good. Get out.” Driscoll folds the paper and holds it out to Steve. “Take this to Sergeant Meadows.”

Steve takes his orders, snatches up his pack, and salutes. Then he executes as neat a turn as any ever seen on a parade ground and marches out of the bunker.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~Historical Notes~  
> [Toul-Croix De Metz](http://www.forgottenairfields.com/france/lorraine/meurthe-et-moselle/toul-croix-de-metz-s1147.html) was an airfield in the Lorraine region of France near the German border, recovered from the Germans in September 1944 and used first as a center for evacuating casualties and distributing supplies, and as a base for combat missions.
> 
> C-47s were used to evacuate casualties from Toul-Crois De Metz and many other places. Check out [a bunch of shiny info on medical air evacuation.](https://www.med-dept.com/articles/ww2-air-evacuation/)
> 
> Also, the history of [aerial reconnaissance in WWII](http://gizmodo.com/spies-in-the-skies-how-aerial-surveillance-tipped-the-1592113832) is kind of awesome.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I lied about the number of chapters, and it's likely I may still be lying. Because I cannot estimate word counts for shit, sorry!

“Sergeant Meadows? I’m Auxiliary Second Class Rogers, sir.” Steve executes a quick salute before passing over the paper—presumably orders—that Driscoll gave him. He came straight here from the command office because everything he has in the world is already in the pack on his back, and there’s no use in hanging around moping. If he’s going to have a chance to earn a place, he needs to start right away. 

While Meadows reads, Steve remains at attention, though he tries to take stock of the squad out of the corners of his eyes. There are about a half-dozen men sitting around a fire in front of a long row of tents, which glow slightly in the fading orange-red evening light. More tents than men might mean some of the squad is on duty elsewhere, or it might mean they’ve had casualties recently.

A voice drifts over from the direction of the fire. “What’s a pro boy doing out here?” 

“Wait, I know this. Is this the one about the horse?”

There’s raucous laughter around the campfire, even though Steve doesn’t see what’s witty about that. 

Meadows is a rangy, tall man a few years older than Barnes, but with some of the same banked anger in the tense lines of his face. He scowls at the paper. “Gentlemen.” He half-turns towards the fire. “The Howling Commandos have sent us their leftovers. Again.”

“Had enough of ‘em already!” one soldier calls over a cry of, “Send ‘em back!” and a chorus of boos.

Meadows turns back to Steve with one eyebrow raised. He speaks softly, beneath the continuing jeers. “See, we just finished mopping up after your little excursion outside of Metz. Caught a counterstrike meant for you. Thirty percent casualties.”

Steve remembers Metz as a hasty fuck with Bucky against a tree in the rain. They’d moved out fast, before Steve had even finished doing up his belt. “Sir, I—“

“How long you been a pro boy?”

“Since ’42. Soon as I could join up.”

“Jesus. You’d think they have used you up by now.”

Steve frowns. He’s not a finite resource, ammunition to be expended. He’ll keep going, no matter how much the Howlies ask of him. How much the Army asks of him. As long as the fighting men need to be here, he'll do his part. “No, sir.”

Beyond the firelight, there’s loud muttering. “I heard the Howlies’ Auxiliary took out a Nazi base by himself.”

“Yeah, fucked ‘em to death.” another voice shouts. 

“I’d pay to see that in the comics!” Laughter rises up again, but Steve does not move from attention.

“So.” Meadows leans back on his heels. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”

The worries Steve tried to share with Driscoll press to the front of his mind. “Sir, there are a few logistics I need to—“

“Now, Rogers.”

They’re standing just a few feet from the camp’s main road, and the row of tents beyond the fire don’t provide much of a barricade from the other squads Steve can make out sitting around their own fires. The watching soldiers have gone quiet.

“Get on your knees," Meadows says. "Or are you disobeying a direct order?”

Steve sinks down with his pack still on his back. He undoes Meadows’ belt and uniform trousers with brisk efficiency. Though he risks a glance up, he can’t make out Meadows’ face in the twilight. Even as Steve’s heart thuds against his chest double-time, he knows his duty. This man has as much right to Steve’s services as any other soldier. This is why Steve is here.

He pulls down Meadows’ shorts to get a hand on his cock, opens his mouth, and sucks in as much as he can.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, you see that?” 

“Straight to work.”

“Easy as pie.”

“Pro boy’s hungry for it, isn’t he?”

Steve tries to shut out the commentary, the way he does mortar fire in the distance, or the sound of Dernier snoring at night. Without wanting to steady himself on Meadows’ hips, he puts his hands to work alongside his mouth, touching and stroking. 

“Conley,” Meadows calls. His voice is perfectly even, like he’s taking a stroll through the park rather than getting his dick sucked. “Take a look at this.” He hands over the paper Steve brought to another soldier, this one squat and broad, with scruff on his face. Conley huffs out a breath, like maybe a chuckle, and walks over to hand the paper to the next man in the circle. Steve’s eyes follow the action until Meadows grabs a handful of Steve’s hair and drags him further onto his dick. 

Steve doesn’t quite choke, but only because he’s had plenty of practice. If he had his druthers, he’d maintain more freedom of motion; at this point in his Army career, he knows his business. It didn’t take him long to learn how each of the Howlies liked it: that Morita wants it soft and slow so he can imagine being with his sweetheart, that Dugan likes him to keep it warm in his mouth afterwards, that Jones enjoys being teased a little. If Meadows gives him a chance, Steve will learn what he likes. That’s something he’s capable of—good at, even. He’ll find a way to make himself indispensible, get Meadows or one of the other squad leaders to request he be assigned to them. He’ll be back in the field in no time. If he can concentrate on what he’s doing.

Behind him, Steve hears gravel crunch—someone walking along the camp path—then a bark of startled laughter. He closes his eyes and sucks harder, concentrates on his breathing. Steve can’t see much except Meadows’ shorts and the light, curly hair of his crotch, but on his good side he can hear the men at the fire chatting again, too quiet to make out over the sound of his wet mouth on the sergeant’s cock. Maybe it’s encouragement, like how Monty and Dugan banter over his back when one of them can’t wait their turn. Or maybe not. The tone of this chatter doesn’t sound light and teasing.

Meadows tightens his hand in Steve’s hair and starts snapping his hips forward, fucking Steve’s throat. Steve braces himself as best he can without holding onto Meadows. None of the Howlies ride him this hard, but he’d had his share of soldiers back at the pro station who thought Steve’s not being a dame meant they could be as rough as they wanted.

Meadows hauls Steve off him by the hair and doesn’t let go. Steve looks up to see Meadows’ hand speeding over his dick, then a hot spurt of semen hits him right between the eyes. Immediately he slams his eyes closed as the next few spatters hit his cheeks, his hair, his mouth. A cheer rises up from around the campfire. 

Steve gingerly wipes a hand across his eyes before he opens them again. His ears are burning. Meadows tucks himself back into his pants and turns back to take something from Conley.

Steve wobbles to his feet—his pack seems much heavier now—in time to see Meadows fold the paper and shove it in his trouser pocket. He looks Steve up and down. “Tent on the left at the end is free. Clean yourself up and report back here in five minutes. You’re on duty tonight.”

Whoops and cheers accompany Steve as he crosses the little yard and walks down the row of tents to the one on the end. He dumps his pack by the flap and sinks onto the cot—a cot, which would have seemed yesterday like an unimaginable luxury. He sits there a moment, just breathing. 

Steve’s first day with the Howlies, riding in that hay truck, Barnes had asked him about his family, showed him the picture of his sisters. Somehow, that moment seems to have shaped everything that came after, from that moment to this one. Except that Barnes is out there somewhere right now with that picture still in his pocket, and Steve is here.

Steve pushes to his feet. He snatches the canteen from the hook on his pack before wrestling the thing open. An undershirt comes out of the haversack first, so he splashes water on that and scrubs his face. The sketchbook is wedged into a side pouch. He tucks it under his arm, digs the nub of a pencil out of his pocket, and marches back outside. 

“Sergeant Meadows.”

Meadows whirls around as if started to see Steve returning so soon. Maybe he expected to find Steve crying in his tent, to have to drag him out by the arm. 

Steve stops at attention, opens his sketchbook to the last page, the one with its neat lettering and three columns, and holds it out to Meadows along with his pencil. “Procedures to prevent the spread of VD require that every soldier who makes use of a prophylactic auxiliary signs and dates that auxiliary’s log.”

All conversation around the campfire evaporates as Meadows stares at him. “This is how you want to spend your five minutes, Rogers?”

“Anyone who gets me sick is getting everyone else in the squad sick, sir,” Steve says. Bucky had pointed that out to him the first day they’d met, when Steve was lying in his undershirt and shorts on a blanket in a tent somewhere in Belgium. “It’s procedure.”

Meadows steps up to Steve, who only comes up to his chest. He takes the pencil. 

While he’s writing, Steve pushes his luck. “I’ll need to do a quick inspection before a soldier begins his turn,” he says, loud enough to carry to the seated men. “To verify he’s clean.”

Meadows closes the book and holds it out. Steve reaches to take it, but Meadows holds on. “You’re the expert.”

There’s a few snickers at that, but Steve says, “Thank you, sir,” anyway, and takes the book. He walks away with his chin held high to prepare for the evening’s shift.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content advisory: This leans more into non-con territory than some other works in 4F, so please be warned. Also, there is some graphic violence and (non-graphic) animal death in this chapter.

They arrive in a steady stream, manhandling Steve into position with little fanfare. He’s laid out his bedroll on the floor of the tent, because it’s easier for maneuvering than the cot. If anyone minds kneeling on the ground to fuck him, they don’t say so. In fact, none of the men say much of anything. And if they’re a bit rougher than soldiers used to be at the pro station, well, these men have just come from the front lines, and Steve knows firsthand how combat can rub the smooth polish right off a person. Maybe they’ve had the part of them that understands nice things wounded somewhere out there: a sense of decorum bleeding to death beneath a German gun position. 

The silence suits Steve just fine; he can let his thoughts wander while one of them takes his turn. He’d stopped doing this with the Howlies, he realizes. Instead of letting his mind go blank, he’d paid attention. Maybe too much attention, if he’s honest. This afternoon, Jones had been quizzing him on French verbs while he screwed him, stopping when Steve messed up a conjugation and rewarding him with deep, rolling thrusts when he repeated the answer correctly. Towards the end, Steve had shot all over the grass, and smiled when he saw Barnes watching. 

Tonight, though, Steve’s thoughts skip back to the same spot over and over, like a record with a scratch: Barnes’ lopsided smile as he shooed Steve off to the doctor. Steve tries to imagine a reply. Maybe if he’d asked Barnes the right question, or said something smart and funny, Barnes would have made a different call. 

Steve’s body drags him back into the reality of the moment at a particularly hard thrust. The man riding Steve slaps the flat of his palm against Steve’s ass and groans as he spills. A tug, the sound of a zipper, a rush of cold air from the tent flap, and the next one’s in. 

Steve tries to remember faces so he can put them with names from the log later. If he wants to make himself useful, it’s good for him to know what each man wants. Steve has a good memory for faces. Last winter when Morita had fallen into a half-frozen river, the picture of his sweetheart that he’d carried since the start of the war had all but disintegrated, its surface warped and marred. From his memory of the photo—Steve had seen it only twice—he drew a sketch. Not one of his bluesies, just the girl standing in a doorway, bright with what Steve imagined California sunshine would look like. He’d passed it to Morita the next morning on his way to fill the jerrycan from the stream. Morita hadn’t said anything, but he’d given Steve the chocolate square out of his K-ration at dinner.

The next man unzips his trousers and shoves in quickly, pushing a grunt out of Steve. He’s plenty slick at this point--lots of hastily-applied vaseline, plus the leavings of the other men who’ve had their turn already, sticky and drying on the back of Steve’s thighs—so it doesn’t hurt. He’s tempted to turn his head, try to catch a glimpse of the man’s face for his growing catalogue of new assignments, but the man shoves a hand between Steve’s shoulders, buckling his arms and pressing his face into the blanket. The man doesn’t say anything when he comes, doesn’t moan or make a noise. He signs a name to Steve’s book before he leaves, but Steve realizes he couldn’t pick the man out of a line-up, had never seen his face nor heard his voice. Steve pushes down the little jolt of fear that thought provokes by telling himself he’d had strangers all the time at the pro station. He doesn’t have to be friends with a squad to do his job right. 

The next soldier arrives without delay and barely waits for Steve’s cursory inspection before shoving into Steve’s mouth. A part of Steve wishes he’d mentioned not using his ears as handles earlier when he was going on about records and health inspections. But he knows there’s no use laying out rules no one’s going to follow.

Steve is just another piece of equipment to them, and few of the GIs Steve’s met take the time to read instruction manuals. Soldiers take care of what belongs to them: men name ships after women and paint pretty girls on their planes and take pride in keeping them in working order. Dum-Dum even sweet-talks his rifle, sometimes. But Steve doesn’t belong to this squad the way he’d belonged to—or at least belonged with—the Howlies. He’s an interchangeable piece of equipment on temporary loan from the Army: a standard-issue hole. 

But Steve knows, though he has to remind himself of it, that doesn’t make him unimportant. Steve’s value to the war effort is at least equal to dry socks or chocolate. Maybe even cigarettes. He has a function to perform, one that the Army must believe is vital to the war effort, if they’ve gone to all the trouble of getting Steve here. That means he may not have the luxury of doing this the way he wants to, but he can count each soldier he serves as a personal victory.

The current man holds Steve in place by the ears as he comes down his throat, then shoves him away so hard he hits the blanket. The next one arrives while the other is still signing his name.

Time always passes strangely for Steve when he’s working. At the pro station, sometimes it had seemed like shifts lasted for days. In the field, once in a while he’d swear he’d just begun sucking Barnes when it was all over. Tonight, though, time stretches and bows, and though each man doesn’t spend long with Steve, he feels like he’s been on his knees for hours. He hasn’t slept in a while—the Howlies had walked through the night to make it to the rendezvous with Phillips—so he’ll be glad of a rest when Meadows’ squad is through. But Steve could swear there’d been only a handful of men around the fire earlier. When the next man signs his name, he has to start a new page. 

While that man fucks him, Steve tries to do a mental tally of how many names fit on a page, but it’s difficult to concentrate with the man’s fingers digging into the same bruised spots a dozen other men have held. The next man in wants a suck, and after that man finishes, Steve starts to feel an unpleasant cramping that usually means he’s eaten something that disagrees with him. He steals a sip of water from his canteen while the next man is undoing his belt, but it doesn’t help. While he sucks, he tries to concentrate on his aching knees, on the knob of his ankle digging into the ground where it’s folded awkwardly under him. Still, Steve’s stomach burbles uncomfortably as the man’s cock nudges into the back of him throat. 

During sex hygiene training, Steve had learned that spitting is rude. It implies to the soldier you’re serving that you find either them or your duty distasteful. Therefore swallowing is the preferred procedure. Steve repeats this to himself three times when the man fists a hand in Steve’s hair, and Steve succeeds in gulping down everything the man gives him. 

The satisfaction of that success doesn’t last long, however. Steve drops onto his side and concentrates on taking deep breaths while the man signs the book and goes out. The next man ducks into the tent almost immediately and unzips his pants before Steve can even sit up. 

“Wait, give me a sec,” Steve says, but the man turns Steve’s head and helps himself to Steve’s mouth. 

At least it doesn’t take long—perhaps the man’s been waiting for a while. Steve fumbles his shorts back on while the guy is still coming. He knows he should put his uniform on, too, but if he waits for the chance, he’ll never make it. 

Bracing for the cold air, Steve darts out from the flap in the wake of his visitor and bypasses a knot of soldiers chatting outside the tent, waiting their turn. Ten paces beyond the tent, Steve stumbles to his knees and retches. His throat burns as he brings up everything he’s swallowed tonight. 

Dawn is pouring over the camp, dousing all the tents in gold and long shadows. Another time, he’d want to draw it. Now it blurs before his eyes like so many abstract shapes. 

A man squats beside him in shirtsleeves and suspenders. Meadows had said his name, earlier: Conley. He clamps a hand on Steve’s shoulder, as if to keep him from falling over. 

“Sorry.” Steve wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “Give me just a sec to clean up, and I can keep going.”

“If you can’t take it, just say.” There’s a mean glint in Conley’s eye, like he’s hoping Steve will say something smart. It’s a look Steve used to see often on faces in back alleys, usually before he got the stuffing beat out of him. 

Steve digs down into his memories of that Brooklyn kid he’d been, the one who always kept his fists up, and says, “I could do this all day.”

Conley pushes to his feet and motions to the soldiers standing by Steve’s tent. “Get him cleaned up. There’s more guys waiting.”

A hand grasps Steve by the ankle and drags him a few yards across the dewy grass. There’s talking and laughter, then a screech of metal splits the quiet morning. Steve turns his good ear that way just in time to be hit with a jet of cold water. He gets a hand in front of his face to block the stream, and sees a handful of guys from the fire fighting platoon in their turnout coats and tall boots. One of them is holding the hose from the truck, and the others are mostly laughing.

“Hang on, hang on,” Steve protests. He may be tired, but he can wash himself, thank you very much. 

A couple of the men brave the spray to lay hands on Steve. Someone dumps him on his front and another pair of hands pulls down his shorts. The man holding the hose aims unerringly at his ass. To the accompaniment of raucous laughter, Steve eels out of the grips of the men holding him. After slipping twice, he manages to stagger upright and plant his feet against the force of the spray. He drags up his soaked shorts, lifts his chin, and marches away from the fire truck and its operators.

The impromptu shower probably succeeded in carrying away some of the accumulated mess from the night’s work, but mainly it leaves Steve cold to the bone, shivering so much his teeth chatter. He totters back to his tent, collapses onto his filthy blanket, and doesn’t protest when the next guy lays down right on top of him. The man’s uniform is scratchy against Steve’s bare back and legs, but he’s warm like a human blanket. 

As the man ruts into him, Steve closes his eyes and imagines himself warm in his bed at the rooming house on Montague Street, listening to the sounds of a New York evening drift through his window. 

With a jolt, his eyes snap open. He doesn’t wish himself back there, not after working so hard to find a way to join this fight. Steve can’t complain about this, not this. He remembers the march to Nichthierdorf: twenty-six miles through rough terrain after he’d been on his knees for six ugly Squids, after he’d killed a man for the first time. Twenty-six miles with his body throbbing and blood dried under his fingernails. That had been difficult. This is easy. This is what he came here to do.

Before the next man comes in, Steve gets to his hands and knees, ready for whatever comes. He pushes back against the men fucking him, egging them on. He tightens up his mouth and pitches in with his hands when someone wants a suck, bringing things to a quick conclusion. He forgets about his swollen knees, the raw burn in his ass, his cold feet, his dry throat, his roiling stomach. He takes everything they give him. Even after the sun gets bright outside his tent and then starts to dim again, Steve doesn’t stop. He’ll keep on until his duty’s finished. 

Steve is lying on his side, trying to conserve the last of his energy, when Sergeant Meadows steps into the tent. “Sergeant.” Steve licks his chapped and cracked lips. “You’ll have to sign the book again. New date and all.”

“I’m not here for that.” Meadows squats next to Steve’s blanket and holds out a tin mug. Steve drags himself upright enough that he doesn’t spill when he sips it. The liquid burns going down, and Steve’s cough racks his skinny chest.

“Whiskey. Careful.” Meadows takes the cup away and sets it on the ground, which is fortunate, because Steve isn’t sure he’s capable of holding it level. Meadows rocks back on his heels and regards Steve with narrowed eyes. “You’ve got more guts than I thought, kid.”

That’s not really a compliment, Steve decides, so he doesn’t have to say thank you. 

After a moment, Meadows pushes to his feet. “Take a break. Tomorrow night we’ll figure out a rotation.”

“Yes, sir.” With effort, Steve lifts his arm for a salute. He makes sure to hold his hand at the correct angle and not a fraction lower. 

After Meadows leaves, Steve flops onto his back. He stares at the canvas a long time before he can muster the strength to wipe himself off with his still-damp shorts. Slowly he gets one foot under him, then the other, until he’s standing. The blanket is soaked and reeking, so it gets balled up and tossed to the corner.

He pulls on his uniform shirt and pants. From his pack, he fishes out two pairs of socks. He sits on the edge of his cot to put them both on. The sketchbook is on the cot, too, with its pencil worn down to a flat nub. There are three pages of signatures. Steve tucks the book under his arm and gingerly lies himself down on the cot, adjusting until he finds a position that strains the fewest sore muscles. Voices outside around the fire carry through the canvas. If he closes his eyes, he can pretend it’s the Howlies.  
\--

“Sarge? Sarge? Sarge... Barnes.”

Bucky turns his head to see Dugan on one knee on the cold cement floor of the hangar that served as a Hydra base. “You done?” Dugan asks.

Bucky looks down to find he’s straddling a body whose face is pulverized beyond recognition. Bright red flecks decorate the floor and the man’s uniform in starburst patterns. When Bucky pulls his hands back, he notices his knuckles are split and bloody. A quick glance around him reveals a dozen or so men in Hydra uniforms or lab coats, all down and unmoving. He looks back at Dugan, who’s frowning. “We secure?” 

“Twenty-two Squids down for the count. You hardly left any for us.”

Bucky shoves himself to his feet, and Dum Dum rises with him, still clutching his rifle. “Everyone else?” Bucky asks.

“Monty’s watching our backs. Frenchie’s rigging the place to blow. Jones and Morita are intelligence gathering.” He jerks his head towards the clump of desks at the side of the hanger. “You all right?”

“Fine.” Bucky snatches his M1 from the floor and checks the clip: still six rounds left. He doesn’t look back at the body with the bloodied face. “See if you can round up a vehicle.”

Dugan strides off with a long backwards glance that Bucky ignores. Instead, he picks his way through the bodies to the arrangement of desks lit by cheery pools of orange lamplight. “Anything useful?”

Gabe stops rifling through a filing cabinet and stands up with a folder in hand. “Hard to say. Lots of stuff in some kind of code.” He opens the folder to show Bucky the top page, which looks like schematics for some kind of mechanical limb, annotated with unfamiliar symbols. “Above my pay grade.”

“Fine. Pack this up. Phillips will want to see it. Anything else?”

“Yeah,” Morita pipes up as he lugs over an armful of files. “Do you want us to do anything about the animals?” 

“Animals?”

“Test subjects, looks like.” Jones points off into the murky darkness of the hangar, at a row of kennels and cages. “They were shooting them when we came in, so I guess they didn’t want us to see whatever they were doing.”

Bucky steps out past the lamplight far enough to see blood oozing under the door of the nearest kennel towards a drain in the floor. He remembers a labrador jumping at the chain link, snarling, and a man in a lab coat aiming a Luger. Then nothing. Now the only sound is Dernier over by the hangar door, cursing under his breath in French as he sets his charges. No movement from any of the cages. 

“Sarge?” Morita steps into Bucky’s line of sight a respectful distance away. 

“Leave all that.”

Morita shoots a quick look to Gabe, who raises an eyebrow. 

Bucky charges over to Morita, grabs the stack of files he’s holding, and tosses them to the ground in a white flutter of paper. “I said _leave it _.”__

__Morita stumbles back a few steps, and Gabe drops his folder. They both keep their eyes fixed on Bucky like he might just be dangerous._ _

__Bucky slings his rifle over his shoulder and turns away, towards the yawning black of the hangar beyond. “Help Dernier set up the demolition. I want to wipe this place off the map.”_ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am shamelessly referencing events from elsewhere in 4F canon left and right here, but a special note that the discussion of the incident near Nichthierdorf is a reference to Rubynye's good-type-hurty [Blooming Nearby](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3293972/chapters/7189739).
> 
>  **Historical Notes**  
>  Firefighting platoons were often stationed at air bases, which means many of them were in England, but a bunch went ashore after D-Day. See very cool pictures [here](http://www.firetrucks-atwar.com/I.html)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again this chapter, we have consent that leans much further to the non- than dub- side, so take care.

With one eye on the line of waiting soldiers, Steve spoons down his powdered eggs like they might run away if he gives them a chance. It’s not that this breakfast’s much of a culinary delight—the egg patties Monty had taught him to make from the powdered stuff are much better—but he’d rather not linger too long around soldiers he doesn’t know. Mornings are technically Steve’s off-hours, but sometimes it’s more trouble to point that out than just to do as he’s asked, especially if it’s an officer doing the asking. He’s learned that if he goes through the chow line early enough, most of the soldiers are too bleary-eyed and intent on their coffee to hassle him. 

Sure enough, when Steve drops off his bowl by the dish washers’ station, one of the men in line elbows his buddy and points to the tabs on the shoulders of Steve’s uniform. Without making eye contact, Steve turns and walks away like he has somewhere to be, like he’s following orders, which tends to deter all but the most determined. In truth Steve’s allowed to spend his time as he likes until his shift starts. Sometimes, if the night’s been particularly rough, he’ll grab a few extra hours of sleep. This morning, though, the soreness feels bearable; he’s slowly getting used to serving a higher volume during each shift. 

The weather’s turned sunny for once, and as much as Steve doesn’t miss days of earning blisters on top of his blisters hiking through the back of beyond, he could stand to spend some time outside. He’s hardly seen the sky in the past week. Being sure to walk with a purpose, Steve moves through camp on a carefully chosen route. He’s less likely to get delayed if he cuts between the radio hut and the officers’ mess, giving a wide berth to the row where the fire trucks are parked. After a quick glance to make sure the coast is clear, he strides across a patch of scraggly grass and installs himself in the open doorway of the shack the Howlies had briefly used as barracks. No one’s been billeted here since, as far as Steve can tell. It’s out of the main flow of camp traffic and provides a view of a scraggly tree and the airstrip beyond, which is about as much artistic inspiration as Steve could ask for. 

With one last glance around to verify he’s alone, Steve pulls his sketchbook out from the back waistband of his trousers and opens it. Considering how fast the pages are filling up, he’ll need to ration the remaining paper so he can keep his logs straight. By rights, there should be some way to requisition paper, since Steve’s using it for official record-keeping, but asking Meadows can wait until Steve’s gotten himself permanently assigned. 

The sketchbook is his own, and what Steve does with it is his own business. Bucky won it off a flyboy playing poker: it had been practically new, just a few scribbles in the front that Steve has since drawn over. He wishes he’d thought to find another book when Jones and Dernier took him out in Paris. It’s not likely Meadows will go to the trouble of signing for Steve as a chaperone so he can get an off-base pass. 

Steve counts eleven empty pages left in the book. Today he decides to ration himself half a piece of paper, maybe a whole one if he thinks up something really worth drawing. He slides his pencil out of his jacket pocket; this one’s hard graphite, not the best for sketching, but at least it’s still long enough to draw with. He’d had to trade for it with one of Driscoll’s camp aides: it had cost one of Steve’s best bluesis and a quick handjob. 

Steve’s been meaning to sketch the planes, maybe do a study of the fat-bellied bombers that come in to refuel. Or perhaps he’ll try to catch one of the mines the engineers are still setting off: that moment when dirt sprays into the air in an arc like water. When his pencil starts moving, though, it’s not the hard, straight lines of a machine that emerge, but the smooth twist of a body: a broad back curved above someone smaller. Beneath them, a square of a blanket with little slashes of pencil to suggest a pallet of straw. Beyond, shadowed darkness.

Steve knows this scene: in a barn on a cold night, when Barnes had taken the time to warm Steve’s hands before the rest of him. The lines of Barnes’ face come together easily under Steve’s pencil, and the rest flows from there. In half an hour the scene is layered onto the page just the way Steve imagines it would have looked if there had been any light to see by at the time. Barnes’ large hands, smudged with dirt, enfold Steve’s, poised as if they’ll move at any moment. 

The pencil stops when Steve starts shading in the shadows on his own face. He shouldn’t be drawing pictures of himself doing his duty, at least not dirty ones like this, where his skinny body’s obviously bare beneath his greatcoat and his face is tilted up towards Bucky’s like he’s angling for a kiss. The soldiers are always teasing Steve that pro-boys like their work too much, as if they’re doing him a favor by indulging his filthy urges. It’s not like that for Steve, no matter what they assume about his past, and he doesn’t want one of them to find this drawing and think differently. 

With a few hasty strokes, Steve finishes the sketch. The tearing of paper sounds unbearably loud in Steve’s good ear as he rips out the page. He folds the drawing twice and slides it into his jacket pocket where he keeps the holy card with the Virgin Mary from his mother’s funeral. He hopes the Blessed Virgin doesn’t mind sharing space, and that she understands the drawing’s just as sacred, in its way. 

Steve is flipping back through the book looking for an empty corner to draw on when he sees a figure striding towards him. Immediately Steve closes his book, tucks it into the back waistband of his uniform trousers, and springs to his feet. He’s discovered it’s not wise to have his mouth anywhere near crotch level if he can help it. 

When the man moves into the shade of the building, Steve recognizes Conley. “I had to run all over camp looking for you. Don’t think you’re not gonna make it up to me later.” He grabs Steve’s arm and starts to pull as if Steve is some German he’s caught. 

Steve hurries to keep up and doesn’t bother pulling away; by now he’s learned that resisting brings out Conley’s aggressive tendencies. “I thought I had the morning off.”

“Change of plans. Orders came in.”

Suddenly, Steve is stepping double-time. This is what he’s been waiting for since Driscoll had dismissed him. If he’s done his job right—and he has, he’s done everything they’ve asked of him—Meadows has got to want to keep him around. 

Steve doesn’t need Conley’s guidance to head straight for Meadows’ tent. Inside, Meadows sits at a table, bent over a map that looks like it was drawn by the drunken draftsman with rheumatism that used to work at the ad agency with Steve. 

Steve offers a quick salute, then stands at attention. “Sergeant? I heard new orders had come in.”

“That’s right,” Meadows says without looking up. “I’m taking a few of the men out for some quick reconnaissance. We’ll be gone two days, maybe three. Conley will manage your rotation in the meantime.”

“Am… Am I not going into the field with you?”

“Course not.” Meadows barks out a laugh, then sobers when he turns to see Steve’s expression. “Front’s no place for a pro-boy. You don’t wanna come with us.” He turns back to his map, and Steve comes closer, right up to the table.

“Beg pardon, Sergeant, but I do. I can be useful.”

“Useful.” Meadows plants an elbow on the table and looks Steve up and down. “My men can go three days without tearing off a piece. Maybe it was nice for Barnes’ boys, being away from camp for so long, but even they figured it wasn’t worth the hassle in the end. No two ways about it, Rogers, we can’t take you with us.”

A cold lump coalesces in Steve’s stomach, warring with the powdered eggs. “So there’s no chance I’ll ever be assigned to you permanently.”

“No! Hell no! That’d be a mess.” Meadows claps a hand to Steve’s shoulder and grins. “Buck up, Rogers. If we head out after this, there’s sure to be another unit on camp that’ll want a live-in wife. You’re already improving morale around here.”

“I’m not a wife,” Steve says slowly, careful to keep his voice even. “I’m a prophylactic auxiliary.”

“Yes, that’s what you are.” Meadows narrows his eyes at Steve, then turns back to his maps. “Speaking of which, I need you on duty early today. The boys tend to get a little wound up the night before a mission, so I want you to treat them extra nice. Can you handle that?”

“Yes, Sergeant.” Steve walks out of the tent with his chin up and his heart in his boots.  
\--

Steve shakes his head when Eastman offers him the bottle of gin for the third time. Though the men have been putting it away all night, Steve has limited himself to a few swallows, just to settle his nerves. The last time he’d been really hung over was in Paris, and the Howlies had given him so much grief over it that Steve had bet Barnes he could stop drinking altogether for at least a month. Too bad Barnes won't be around to collect his winnings. 

Steve’s grip slips when Eastman leans back to take a long swig, and he has to rebalance before he can continue to bounce on the man’s lap. He thinks briefly about slacking off, making Eastman do some of the work if he wants it this way, but then Steve reminds himself that this is his job, not a walk in the park. Steve's in the United States Army, and any shirking of duties is a detriment to the war effort. He braces a hand on Eastman's shoulder and keeps moving.

Olson stumbles over, shouts, “Quit hogging the goods!” and clutches at Steve’s hand. His breath smells like a distillery, but he’s apparently not too drunk to miss his chance at a second helping. 

The fire’s burned down to a few smoldering logs, still giving out heat that feels good on Steve’s naked skin in the cool night. There’s enough light to see Eastman’s face tighten as he finishes. The hand not holding the gin bottle digs into Steve’s bony ass, and Eastman lets out a hoarse moan.

“Come on, you!” Someone hooks his arms under Steve’s shoulders to drag him off Eastman’s lap only to dump him on the dusty ground beside the fire. Steve rubs at his calf, which had started to cramp while he was riding Eastman. He flexes his foot to stretch out the muscle, and barely registers the sight when Olson whoops and comes around to Steve’s front, holding up his uniform trousers in one hand and his dick in the other. Back to work, then. Steve organizes his shaking limbs into a vague kneeling posture. 

From behind, someone—likely the same someone who’d thrown him down—grabs hold and pushes in. Steve braces and tries to relax as a considerable girth stretches him. It doesn’t hurt—Steve knew to prepare for this tonight—but it’s far from comfortable. Steve glances back to confirm his suspicion: Jack Roth, built like a Sherman tank and just as unstoppable once he gets going. Steve barely has a chance to get his mouth on Olson before Roth hammers into him, mauling his hips with those big paws of his. There’s no use trying to do anything but ride it out, so Steve does, pulling precious air in through his nose every time Olson’s dick clears his throat. 

Someone, maybe baby-faced Private Hume, is giving a running commentary like he’s Red Barber, only with more cursing. “And it’s Jackie ‘Bulldozer’ Roth at the plate. Is he gonna be the one to bring it in for the home team, or will Roy Olson strike him out? They’re fucking like champions here tonight, ladies and gentlemen!”

“Shut up,” Roth pants. “I can’t think with your yapping.”

“Don’t have to think, just swing your bat!”

Roth reaches out to shove Hume off the log he’s sitting on, provoking an indignant yelp, then goes back to giving it to Steve as hard as he can. 

Olson’s content to stand there and let Steve be shoved onto his cock, which is helpful; Steve is able to sneak a breath into his aching lungs once in a while. He concentrates on his breathing, on the pebble digging into his knee, on the sweat that’s dripping down his flank, and not on the relentless jolt of bodies crashing against him, into him. 

At last, Roth clamps a hand against Steve’s shoulder and yanks him back one last time. He lets out a loud, throaty groan as he shoots inside Steve.

“A run for the home team!” Hume shouts from a safe distance beyond the fire. Roth pulls out, releasing a small spill of jizz that trickles out in his wake. 

Olson curses and snaps his hips forward, taking his time now that Roth’s not manhandling Steve. “Almost caught up. Ah well, next time I’ll beat him.” He tightens his hand in Steve’s hair and holds him in place while he finishes. It’s over fast, at least, and Olson just lets go instead of pushing Steve down when he moves away to button up his pants.

“Who’s next in the line-up?” Hume shouts in his announcer voice. “Do we have to call in a pinch hitter?”

Steve lets his head hang down between his arms, coughing and trying to swallow down the sticky coating gumming up his throat. He’s hoping for a bit of a break, but once they get wound up like this, it’s usually rough going for a few hours. He stretches out his left leg to let up on his aching knee, and winces as another spurt of jizz slides out of him.

Someone steps up behind him, maybe Eastman, judging from the slosh of the gin bottle. He nudges a booted foot against Steve’s thigh. “God, he’s sloppy. Look at that. Fucking mess.”

“Jack, I bet you could get your whole hand up there.”

“Yeah, go on Jackie boy!”

“Let’s see what he’s got.”

Hands pry Steve’s cheeks apart, exposing his sore hole to the cool night air. He can feel spunk still trickling out of him, tacky and wet on his thighs. “Fellas,” he begins in what he hopes is a reasonable tone. There's no good reason aside from Steve's pride to stop them from saying nasty things, but Steve can demand that they stick to one of the three Army-approved methods for sexual release so they don't risk putting a valuable resource out of commission. “I’m not—“

“Get to it, come on.” Olson jams the heel of his hand down on Steve’s back between his shoulder blades until Steve’s elbows fold and his face slams into the dirt. He sucks in a breath that sends him into a coughing fit.

“What a nasty little cunt.” That’s Eastman’s laugh, a high-pitched giggle. “Sloppy, ugh, come on, plug him up.”

Thick fingers—probably Roth’s—press at Steve’s entrance, spreading around the mess. Steve’s sore, sure, but he’s plenty loose, especially after the cornholing Roth gave him. The fingers go in with almost no resistance.

“Wait—“ he tries to say, but Roth pulls his legs further apart, so far his hips creak. The fingers disappear, then return doubled. Suddenly there’s an impossible push—Roth’s meaty hand, thumb folded into his palm and shoving insistently into Steve. And yeah, Steve has already been fucked wide open, but this is too much. He tries to say something, but he can only get out small, hurt sounds that puff against the dry ground, unheard.

“Come on, open up,” Roth growls.

“Take it, pro boy!”

“Harder, Jackie. Give it to him!”

Steve’s hands scrabble against the dirt, but there’s nothing to hold onto. The pain flares, then subsides as Roth’s hand slips inside him. Steve shouts, sound spilling out of him in a high-pitched flurry. 

“Shut him up.” A big hand clamps down hard over his mouth. Steve can’t see whose with his face shoved into the dirt.

“Yeah, shit, look at him stretched like that.” 

“Go on, fuck him with your arm.”

Steve tries to breathe past the improvised muzzle, but he can’t get enough air. A familiar burn flares up in his lungs, sending a spike of fear through him. Roth is following instructions, rotating his wrist to grind his knuckles relentlessly against Steve’s prostate. It provokes an interested twitch from Steve’s flaccid dick, but those small sparks of pleasure are nothing against the building pressure in his chest.

“That’s it, he loves it, look at him.”

Roth tugs his hand back and shoves it in further. Steve whines and squirms, but hands hold him firm.

“Come on, pro boy, show us you like it. You can shoot from this, can’t you?”

It’s too much, too hard to be pleasurable, or even bearable. They don’t understand him at all, if they think this is what he likes. Any of the Howlies would have known better. Barnes must have learned a dozen ways to make Steve lose his mind, and this is nothing like any of them. Steve tries again to suck in a breath, but ends up coughing instead, the sound muffled by the hand over his face.

“That’s disgusting.” Roth pulls his hand out, leaving Steve’s hole gaping and drooling jizz. He wipes his fingers against Steve’s back, smearing the mess. “Hey Muzzy, go get your rifle. I bet he could take it. We’ll fuck him with that for a while.”

“I’m not getting my weapon filthy to get some pro-boy his jollies.”

The tightness seizes Steve’s chest worse than before. He pushes up against the hands holding him, but it doesn’t help. There’s no air at all. A jolt of panic sizzles across Steve’s nerves and freezes him. Surely the soldiers have noticed something’s wrong, haven’t they? Barnes always seemed to know when an asthma attack was coming on. But now they’re not even looking at him. Steve claws at the hand over his mouth and kicks out hard.

“Hey, calm down, kid.” Olson shoves him into the dirt again, but whoever’s holding his face lets go.

Air whistles through Steve’s teeth, but he can’t get it in. There’s a band of pressure around his chest, squeezing like it’s trying to ground his lungs to powder. Steve has to make them listen, even if he can’t speak. He gathers his strength and jerks to the side, the way Dum-Dum taught him to squirm out of a hold. To his surprise, the move works; he lands hard on his back, but can’t seem to do anything other than lie there gasping like a fish, looking up at the stars. 

“Hang on, there’s something wrong with him.”

“Let him up, he can’t breathe!”

Hands are suddenly everywhere at once, tugging him upright. Steve closes his eyes against the head rush and tries to suck in air.

“What the fuck’s wrong with him?”

“What’d you do, Jack?”

“It’s an asthma attack. My kid sister has ‘em.” Hume kneels beside Steve and shoos the others back. “Give him some space.”

They prop him up against the log by the fire. Now that there’s no one holding him down, the panic has receded to a simmer, and Steve can form thoughts again. “Pack,” he gasps. “Cigarettes.”

“Yeah.” There’s footsteps retreating, then Eastman rushes back with Steve’s whole haversack. “What do you need?”

Steve digs out the crinkled green package from the pocket on the side, but his hands are shaking too badly to do more. Hume plucks a stick out, lights it, and holds it up to Steve’s lips. 

Steve closes his eyes and sucks in the smoke as slowly as he can, though most of it comes right back out on a cough. The second drag is better. Just having the cigarette in hand makes him breathe easier. 

When Steve opens his eyes, Hume is still sitting on the ground beside him and the rest have made themselves scarce. “Should we call the doctor, Rogers?”

“No,” Steve wheezes. “No.” If the doctor comes, he’ll have to document the incident. He might declare Steve unfit for field duty. As if anyone will ever take Steve for field duty again. Steve draws his knees up to hide his nakedness as his skinny chest shudders, and then takes another drag.

“How are you even out here if you got asthma that bad?” Up close, Hume looks to be about 18. Maybe younger than Juniper had been.

“It’s not—“ Steve tries to say, but he has to stop in favor of bracing his hands against his knees and sipping in air. After another slow drag from the cigarette, he tries again. “Wanted to enlist. This is the only way they’d take me.”

“Jesus.” Hume shakes his head. “Here.” Hume picks up the gin bottle from where it’s listing against a pile of firewood and offers it to Steve, who waves it away. “Suit yourself.”

Hume sits there with him until Steve’s smoked the whole cigarette, and is starting to think how funny they must look: a skinny, naked pro-boy having a smoke sitting next to a baby-faced soldier in uniform sipping from a bottle of gin. Maybe he’ll try sketching the scene tomorrow.

Footsteps approach from the other side of the fire and resolve into a shadow that falls over them both. Steve’s night vision is terrible, but Hume says, “Sarge,” scrambles to his feet, and tucks the bottle under his arm. When Meadows gives him a nod, he scuttles away. 

Standing between Steve and the fire, Meadows’ face is lost in darkness. “You okay, kid?”

“Yes, Sergeant.” Steve wheezes in another breath.

“You gonna expire on me?”

“No, Sergeant.”

“They hurt you?”

“No.” Steve pushes himself up from a slump to sitting. “I’ve had asthma since I was a kid.”

“They’re good boys. They can get carried away.” Meadows perches on the log, but he leaves a healthy distance between them. 

“I’m fine, sir. I can do my job.”

“It doesn’t help you to be walking around here, eating with the men and talking to them. You get them too riled up.” Meadows stands. “Tomorrow, Conley will get you set up somewhere else on base.” 

Last night, Steve might have argued. But if there’s no way Meadows is going to take Steve on, it doesn’t matter how well he gets to know the squad. He’ll always be a temporary amusement to them. It makes no difference if he does his work here or in the barracks or in the damn mess. “Yes, Sergeant.”

Meadows walks back towards his tent. Steve thinks about calling after him, wishing him good luck on the mission tomorrow, but he doesn’t. Instead he gathers the pieces of his uniform from where they’re scattered around the fire and walks through the darkness back to his own tent. 

He cleans up with cold water rather than braving the showers at this time of night. If he’s still here when the weather turns cold, he’ll have to figure out a better way. For now he wipes up what he can, puts his uniform back on, and lays down on his cot. He tucks his hand against his pocket next to his holy card and the drawing he made this morning, and closes his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again with the being terrible at estimating word count, sorry! Don't worry, Bucky will be back! I swear... Eventually... 
> 
> **Historical Notes**  
>  Army food is faaaaascinating. People actually got pretty creative with the supplies at hand. Check out these [memories of food in the infantry.](http://www.89infdivww2.org/memories/drilling.htm)
> 
> [Red Barber](http://sabr.org/bioproj/person/5d514087) was the radio announcer for the Brooklyn Dodgers from 1935-1953. Yes, presumably he's the one announcing the game Steve hears on the radio in CA:TFA and identifies as a Phillies vs. Dodgers game from 1941.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay! Work/life balance is a thing, I guess.

Bucky has learned to tell an American soldier from a Russian or a German by his silhouette in the dark: the helmet, the jacket, the pack. But today he waits to be certain until he sees the bars on a uniform sleeve through the scope of his rifle. In the falling twilight, it’s difficult to make out more detail. Still, Bucky lets his rifle linger on the sergeant, who’s standing at the side of the road waiting for the last of his men to catch up. Just one slow flex of Bucky’s finger could drop him, easy as anything. 

Bucky pulls back from the scope to see Dugan still leaning up against a tree, watching him. He’s chewing on a blade of grass: the stub of his last cigar had gotten soaked in the stream they’d crossed last night. “Friend or foe?” Dugan asks.

“Americans.” Bucky pushes to his feet and slings his rifle over his shoulder.

“Should be, this far in.” Dugan spits out the grass and pushes away from the tree. “Might be nice to share the watch tonight. The guys are tired.”

“We’ll see.” Bucky starts walking back down the hill to where the rest of the Howlies are waiting.

“Barnes,” Dugan calls. Bucky stops and waits for him to catch up. “You want us to go around them?”

The thing is, he does. There’s no way Bucky will sleep tonight if there’s strangers in the Howlies’ camp. But Dugan’s right. They’ve been pushing hard, playing hide-and-go-fuck-yourself with the Germans during daylight hours and camping cold during the night, and they’re still two days’ walk from Toul-Croix De Metz. Bucky forces a chuckle. “’Course not. Come on.”

Dugan waves the others up to meet them, and they walk two-by-two on either side of the road. Despite the fact that this should be friendly territory, Bucky notices that each of the Howlies has his weapon to hand and an eye on the trees lining the road. They’ve been on edge since blowing that Hydra installation, same as him.

They halt at the top of a rise and wait for the Americans to spot them. Bucky watches their quick flurry of activity with a critical eye, thinking that if he were a German, he’d have his pick of targets. Then again, if he were a German, the Howlies would have picked him off before he got close enough to target these men.

Before long, the sergeant has his people sorted out and marching up the road. He halts ten feet away. “Meadows,” he says by way of introduction. “79th Infantry.”

“Barnes,” Bucky offers. 

“Yeah, we know who you are,” Meadows says. If there’s no excited note of hero-worship in those words, at least that means no one will have to autograph dog-earned comic books tonight.

“You headed north?” Dugan asks before Bucky can say anything. “We just came from that way. Had a few tangles with Fritz.”

“Nah.” Meadows jerks his chin to the side. “Got to see a man about a bridge.” He glances back over his shoulder, in the vague direction they’d come from. “Say, we got a good taste of your fairy boy back at base.”

“What?” Bucky frowns, and Dugan says quietly, “You talking about Rogers?”

“Real sweet cunt,” another man in the squad says. “Lips almost as good as a girl.”

“Yeah,” pipes up someone else from the back of the formation. “Thanks for leaving us something worth having, for once!”

Bucky hears a roaring in his ears that makes him think of bloody knuckles and the punch of a bullet through flesh. From the corner of his eye he sees Gabe tighten his hand on his weapon. Morita shoots a look at Falsworth, who sets his jaw and straightens his back, like he’s preparing to fight despite the arm that’s wrapped up and strapped to his chest. Dernier says something under his breath in French that Bucky doesn’t catch, but makes Gabe smile grimly.

“And hey, Barnes?” Meadows steps in closer. Barnes glides forward to meet him, hand on his rifle. Meadows lowers his voice. “You should know, he may have been sweet to us, but he sure pissed someone off.” Meadows fumbles in his pockets and comes up with a creased and folded piece of paper, which he passes over to Bucky. 

It’s a typewritten form with “Orders” printed across the top, and “Major Seymour J. Driscoll” printed at the bottom, though none of the blanks are filled in. At the bottom, scrawled in the margin, someone has written, “This nance thinks he’s good as a real soldier. Teach him a lesson.”

Driscoll. Not Phillips, who was already packing up when the Howlies were boarding the plane and Bucky was preoccupied with plans for raiding the Hydra base. Finding the Howlies gone, Rogers would have reported for orders to the camp CO. Major Driscoll. The one who’d glared daggers every time Bucky shot down one of his asinine ideas. Rogers has a mouth on him, sure, but he also knows when to keep it shut. That wouldn’t have helped, not with a vindictive son-of-a-bitch like Driscoll. Rogers hadn’t had a chance to get himself in trouble, because Bucky had done it for him. 

Bucky folds the paper and tucks it into his jacket pocket before he returns his attention to Meadows. The man is tall, long-limbed, looks a few years older than Barnes. And he'd fucked Rogers. More than once, probably. If he'd done as ordered, he hadn't been real polite about it, either. Might even have hurt him on purpose. Bucky has eight rounds in his rifle, the Walter P38 in his waistband, plus a bayonet. He can pick off an enemy at 300 yards, so there's no way he can possibly miss at this distance.

"Sarge?" Dugan's voice from a few feet away jolts Bucky.

He draws in a long, slow breath and lets his hand relax on his rifle. “Thank you for telling me,” he says to Meadows.

“Seems like a nice enough kid.” Meadows tilts his head towards the trees. “You sacking out here for the night? We could share the watch.”

“No.” Bucky looks back at the rest, none of whom have made any move to set down their packs. “We’ll push on.”  
\--

Every page in Steve’s sketchbook is full. One of the nurses, Christine, has taken a shine to Steve, and she found him some paper—the back sides of old requisition forms—that he can use for his contact logs in exchange for a few hours of help in the medical station. That paper’s Army property, though, not for drawing. It’s too bad. Steve had seen mist rising from the airfield at dawn this morning and was thinking it’d be a nice challenge to capture something ephemeral like that, something beautiful that disappears from sight, but that he could preserve on paper.

Instead he sits in the infirmary tent rolling bandages. No one will bother him as long as he’s doing something useful here. Private Willis, who’ll hopefully be evacuated today, had eyed Steve earlier and asked the doc about “therapeutic stress relief,” but otherwise Steve has been left alone all morning. That seems like a treat. Used to be he’d get bored in camp. Even when he kept busy with chores, still he looked forward to having the Howlies back: Dugan cooking a chicken they’d liberated from an enemy camp, Morita and Falsworth arguing over the plot of a Sherlock Holmes story that Monty remembered reading and Jim remembered hearing on the radio, Dernier sitting with pieces of a bomb in his lap, telling Jones filthy jokes Steve only half understood, and Barnes watching them all, with and still apart from the group, dark eyes unfathomable and always a little sad. Somewhere they’re all together and Steve hopes, keeping one another safe. 

At quarter after ten, the local boy who Steve has seen running errands around the camp scampers into the tent and glances around. “Où est la lessive?” he asks Christine.

“What?” She’s busy changing the dressings on Private Goldstein’s head. “I…Je ne parle un français. Run along.”

“La lessive,” the boy repeats. “Ma mère m'a envoyé pour l'obtenir.”

“I don’t speak French,” Christine says, slower this time, and with her brows furrowed. 

From his place perched on a little stool in the corner, Steve clears his throat. “Is there a local woman that does the infirmary’s laundry?”

“What?” Christine tears her eyes away from Goldstein to frown at Steve. “Yes. The laundry trailer is apparently still mired somewhere outside Calais. The quartermaster found us some local help.” That’s the most words anyone’s spoken to Steve in a week. 

“Un moment,” Steve says to the boy. Then, to Christine, “This is her son. He’s here to pick up the laundry.” 

“Oh, right.” Christine frees a hand from her work to point. “There, in that bag. Merci.”

The boy scampers over and hoists the olive drab canvas bag, which is almost as large as he is. With a nod to Steve, he staggers out of the tent. Christine flashes Steve a distracted smile, then returns to her work. 

Steve places his rolled bandage in the empty tin, picks up the next strip of cloth from the basket, and begins winding it with new energy. Each day, he’s finding more chances to make life easier on the base in any way he can. That’s what he signed up for, he tells himself. He’s making himself useful. He’s doing his part.

He’s still repeating all that in his mind when he reports to Conley after lunch and sees a line of men waiting.  
\--

Usually once the Howlies set foot on a base, they shed some of the watchfulness that keeps them on edge when they’re out on a mission. When they march into Toul-Croix De Metz, however, they form up behind Bucky as if they’re moving through enemy territory. They make it as far as the shack that served them for barracks last time before Bucky runs out of patience. He strips off his pack and everything that might slow him down, preparing like he’s about to take an enemy position. 

When he notices the other Howlies doing the same, he snaps, “You’re all staying here,” and receives a complete set of mutinous looks in return. 

“You’re not gonna go after him alone,” Dugan says.

“Yes I am.” Something in Bucky’s tone drives Dugan back a step, and Bucky huffs out a breath. “Set up a perimeter and round up some chow. I won’t be long.”

“See that you aren’t,” Dugan mutters, but he lets Bucky leave. 

Bucky follows where he’s pointed until he arrives at a burned-out stone building that might once have been some sort of livestock enclosure. There’s a square room still standing that has a tarp tied over the missing roof. Under the lean-to outside, three soldiers sit on the ground. Muffled grunts and the slap of skin on skin drift out through the darkened doorway.

When Bucky stops a few feet away, one of the soldiers, a thin, wiry man with his uniform jacket slung over his lap gives him a bored look and says, “There’s a line.”

Bucky spares a moment to wonder if this man’s had Rogers yet or is waiting his turn. With a great force of will, he avoids slamming his boot into the man’s chin and barrels on into the dusty dimness.

“Hey, I said there’s a _line_!” the guy calls after him.

“Shut up,” another voice hisses. “Don’t you recognize him? It’s the guy from the comics.”

Even without waiting for his eyes to adjust, Bucky can make out Rogers’ pale, skinny back moving as the soldier behind him plugs him hard. The man throws a quick scowl over his shoulder at Bucky, but he doesn’t stop. “Hey, this isn’t a private show, pal. Get out.”

Rogers cranes his neck to see what the fuss is about. When his eyes meet Bucky’s, his whole face opens up, and he almost smiles. Then he clenches his jaw tight and says, “Anyone outside my assigned rota’s gotta get special permission from Sergeant Meadows.”

“Who do you think told me where to find you?” Bucky asks. He’s surprised how even his voice sounds.

Rogers fists his hands in the crumpled blanket he’s kneeling on. “Fine. Then wait your turn.” He slams back against the soldier, who groans and scrapes a hand down Rogers’ back, leaving thin pink scratches. Rogers keeps humping against the man, milking him through his climax. 

The guy’s barely pulled out before Bucky hauls him up by the back of the shirt and shoves him out the door. “Get lost.” A step towards the doorway lets Bucky bark at the soldiers outside, “Take a hike.” One of them opens his mouth to protest, but Bucky’s menacing, “Get gone” sends the whole lot scrambling off down the path.

Now that there’s no mook of a soldier actively mauling Rogers, Bucky can see the livid handprint bruises that mar his waist. When he sits up, glaring, Bucky counts more bruises around his neck, and what’s probably a healing bite mark. There’s also a cut on his mouth and a dark smudge under his left eye that could be a bit of dirt of the remains or a shiner.

“What are you doing, Rogers?”

“My job.” Rogers raises his chin. “Which end do you want?”

“Steve.” The night he first saw Rogers naked, Bucky’d had a stomach full of rocks, not sure how to behave with a pro-boy in his camp. But this—this felt worse. 

“I’m probably pretty loose by this time of day.” Rogers turns around to brace on all fours, then looks back over his shoulder at Bucky. “Though I guess you never minded it being sloppy, going last all the time.”

“Cut it out.”

“You want my mouth, then? Fine.” Rogers reaches for Bucky, who strikes back quickly, automatically, one arm shoved across Rogers’ shoulders and a hand pinning him by the small of the back. The roaring in Bucky’s ears—the one that’s been with him since Meadows showed him that note—crescendos, drowning everything else out. 

Screwing his eyes shut, Rogers flinches against the blanket, like he’s expecting to get hit. As if Bucky would ever hit him. As if anybody would dare. Then Bucky remembers the blood and dark shadows on Rogers’ narrow face. The roaring evens out into an angry hiss.

“Hey, come on.” Bucky backs off and crouches at the edge of the blanket. “Sit up.”

Moving slowly, either from wariness or stiffness, Rogers pushes himself to sitting and folds his legs in front of him. His breaths in and out are shallow, barely moving his skinny chest. “What do you want, Sergeant Barnes?”

“What do I want?” Bucky spares a glance for the stone-walled room with its busted-out windows streaming dusty sunlight, the straw lining the floor, and the raggedy tarp serving as a ceiling: a cage to keep an animal in. “I wanna know what the hell you think you’re doing.”

“I told you—“

“My job,” Bucky interrupts. “Yeah, yeah. Last I checked, you were assigned to my unit.”

“When did you last check, Sergeant? Because I was told you decided having an auxiliary in the field was too much of a determent to your work.”

“Too—“ Bucky lets himself drop onto his knees. He is going to kill Driscoll. He’s going to dig a shallow grave somewhere and drag Driscoll to it while he screams and begs and dump him in the dirt and douse him with gasoline, and—Later. “What did they tell you?”

“That I was being reassigned.” Rogers frowns, and for the first time he’s not giving Bucky that blank, stoic expression he uses on strangers asking for things he doesn’t want to give. “Major Driscoll said I could try out with a few of the squads, see if anyone wanted to keep me.”

Bucky tugs a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket and passes it to Rogers. “Meadows gave me this.”

Rogers skims over the printed form to the hand-written note at the bottom. He looks at it much longer than it could possibly take to read the words. At last, his eyes rise to meet Bucky’s. “This isn’t official orders.”

“No. According to the orders I left with Phillips, you’re on furlough.”

“Furlough? But Driscoll said…” Rogers shakes his head. “Sarge, I didn’t sass him, I swear.”

“No, I know.” Bucky clenches his hands so hard his dirty nails bite into the meat of his palms. “I pissed him off before I left. Running my mouth.”

“Sounds about right.” Rogers smooths the crumpled paper against the filthy blanket. “You didn’t take me with you.”

“We were on a parachute drop. Night mission.”

“Everyone all right?”

“Falsworth caught a knife on his arm, but he’ll live.”

Rogers raises an eyebrow at him. Bucky had forgotten how long his eyelashes are, especially when he looks up like that. “What about you?’

“What about me?”

“You look like hell.”

“ _I_ look like hell?” Bucky runs his eyes down Rogers’ banged-up, naked body. With a frown, Rogers snatches his shorts from a pile of clothes in the corner. He’s pulled them on and is stepping into his pants when Bucky pushes to his feet and crowds closer. “Rogers, I’m—“

Rogers turns back and stands his ground, refusing to let himself be herded. In the golden afternoon light, Bucky can see Rogers' face more clearly and make out the dark blue and greenish remains of what was certainly a black eye. “It’s fine," Rogers says. "It wasn’t that bad. I’m fine.”

“That’s not what I heard.” Bucky can still hear the words of Meadows’ men—nothing he hasn’t heard before, but different this time, knowing he hasn’t been around to tell Rogers anything different. 

Rogers summons a tired grin, almost proud, like he’d been after taking out those Squids. “Piece of cake.”

“Shit.” Bucky can’t help the bark of a laugh that escapes. “If Driscoll wanted to humiliate the Howlies, he shouldn’t have chosen the most pig-stubborn one of us.”

Rogers eyes go wide. Bucky has to run back his words in his head to figure out what caused it. When he does, he coughs. “Hey, get some clothes on and let’s get going. I bet we can get Dum-Dum to cook your favorite: shit on a shingle.”

“Gee, great,” Rogers says with a familiar sardonic edge, and reaches for the rest of his clothes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, there's one more chapter to come, with a bit more reconciliation. My math failures continue!
> 
>  **Historical Notes**  
>  Unsurprisingly, laundry was a huge challenge during WII. Check out these interesting details about [the laundry battalion in Italy](http://www.qmfound.com/laundry_italy.htm).
> 
> [Shit on a shingle](http://www.kratzmc.com/2015/02/08/sos-shit-on-a-shingle-ww2-style/), or chipped beef on toast (sometimes creamed chipped beef) was actually a really popular meal. You should try it sometime, it's pretty good!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very special thanks to Rubynye from talking me off the ledge and encouraging my porn, to Stoatsandwich, from whose meta headcanon I borrow heavily part of this, and Jaune-chat, who reminded me of the existence of Atherton Wing.

The Howlies guard Steve like he’s an artillery position they’ve just captured. They’ve put up a guard perimeter around their little shack that they re-form as Steve and Barnes pass inside.

Gabe gives Steve a one-armed hug before returning to his post at the end of the path. Falsworth tips his hat, Dernier kisses him on both cheeks, and Dugan claps him on the back so hard he nearly tumbles. Through it all Barnes keeps a hand on Steve’s elbow as if he’s afraid Steve will bolt. 

Inside the shack, Morita sits on one of the wooden bunks with his med kit open. Bucky steers Steve forward until he plants his feet and refuses to budge. “I’m _fine_ ,” Steve says. “Jim, tell him.”

Morita glances at Bucky, then looks Steve up and down. “Are you?”

“Nothing that needs stiches or morphine or splinting,” Steve says, which is the truth. “Honestly, it’s not bad,” is more of a fib, but he says it with conviction.

Morita raises both eyebrows, then looks at where Barnes’ hand is still clamped around Steve’s elbow. “Sarge, can I….?”

Barnes backs off, and Steve drifts forward to sit on the edge of the wooden bunk next to Morita. He takes care not to wince when his sore ass hits the unyielding wood. Morita takes Steve’s chin in his hand and tilts Steve’s face into the golden sunlight streaming in from the door. He presses his thumb against the bone beneath Steve’s eye, where the bruising is still dark. Steve closes his eyes and holds a hiss of pain behind his teeth.

“Looks like nothing’s broken,” Morita reports.

“It doesn’t really hurt,” Steve mutters.

Morita offers a skeptical grunt Steve hopes Barnes can’t hear, and prods at his face. “Your jaw?”

“He only hit me the once.” Behind him, Barnes rumbles out a growl, but Steve ignores him. He’d gotten worse beatings from Brooklyn bullies on a weekly basis. A bored sadist like Conley barely rates a mention. “Jim, I really am fine.”

Morita gives Steve a long look, then pulls his hands back and turns his attention to Barnes. “There’s nothing for me to do here, Sarge.”

Barnes frowns, but responds with a terse, “Fine.”

Morita packs up the kit, squeezes Steve’s shoulder, and high-tails it out the door.

When he’s gone, Barnes sinks down next to Steve and plants his elbows on his knees. The calm acceptance of what’s happened that Barnes displayed in the tent seems to have eroded. Steve long ago figured out that Barnes is his opposite in this: tearing himself up the more he thinks about something, rather than deciding what to do about it and moving on. If that’s what’s happening here, Steve has to step in before Barnes does something he’ll regret. 

Steve scoots closer to Barnes, near enough that their boots are almost touching. “I really am okay.” 

“I’m going to kill them,” Barnes says in the direction of the warped wooden floor.

“That’s ridiculous. Nobody did anything wrong, except maybe Major Driscoll, misrepresenting orders.” If that’s stretching the truth just a bit, Barnes doesn’t need to know. 

“They hurt you.” Bucky pushes to his feet, throwing his shoulders back like he does when he’s rushing into enemy fire. “They wanted a lesson, I’ll give ‘em one.”

“You can’t.” Steve springs up, ignoring the protests of his sore muscles, and hurries over to blocks Barnes’ path.

“You don’t get to tell me what I can’t do.” Barnes looms over him, looking enormous and imposing this close up in a way Steve doesn’t usually notice, even when he’s on his knees.

A spark of anger ignites what Steve thought he’d doused. He hadn’t let what Driscoll had done get to him, and here Bucky is getting upset, letting that bastard under his skin. That’s something Steve can’t allow, not if it’s on his behalf. He puffs up his chest and glares right back at Barnes. “It’s my body, isn’t it? I should be the one to decide if it was misappropriated. I’m fine, I’m not damaged, and I’m still capable of doing the job I did before. Anything else you’re mad about is just pride.”

“Looking out for the guys under my command, that’s pride?”

“I’ve told you before, I know what I can handle.” Steve waves a hand towards the outside. “So I pulled extra duty for a few weeks. So what? It wasn’t my favorite assignment, but I had it under control.”

“No you didn’t. Look at you.” Barnes drops a hand on Steve’s shoulder that Steve shoves off immediately. His hands ball up into fists and he wishes he were just a few inches taller so he could shout right into Barnes’ face.

“I wasn’t in any danger of getting _fucked to death_ , Sergeant. If I’d had to keep going, I would have. I can take care of myself.” Seeing that Bucky’s getting set to argue that point again, Steve barrels on. “Getting yourself in trouble with Major Driscoll isn’t going to help me any.”

“Don’t plan to get in trouble.” Barnes tries to step around Steve, but Steve scrambles ahead to plant himself in Barnes’ path.

“You wouldn’t be this mad if someone had borrowed your boots and brought ‘em back muddy.”

“This is different.” Barnes crosses his arms over his chest.

“It’s not.” Steve makes himself bite back anything else he wants to say about Barnes thinking he owns Steve, and instead makes his voice perfectly even as he lays down the irrefutable facts. “I’m a piece of Army equipment you’re authorized to use. It’s the same thing.”

“It’s different and you know it.”

“How?” Steve asks, spreading his arms.

“Because you--” Barnes cuts himself off and stands glaring at Steve long enough that Steve starts to wonder if Bucky might hit him. Then he shakes his head and holds up both hands. “Fine. You’re determined to be a punk about this? Stay here.” He strong-arms Steve to the side and stalks out of the room, leaving Steve alone.

Steve leans back against the rough wood of the wall and presses his hands against his forehead. His heart thuds against the confines of his chest as hard as if he’d just run with the Howlies from an enemy ambush. He’s still there ten minutes later when heavy footfalls announce someone’s approach, so he drags his hand down his face and pushes himself into a more-or-less presentable posture.

“Rogers.” Dugan appears in the doorway holding a plate of steaming, gloriously salty S.O.S. “You hungry?"

Steve hasn’t had any food since breakfast—he’s learned that eating before a long shift is a bad idea—and his stomach growls at the smell of meat. 

“Shit. Haven’t they been feeding you?” Dugan steps up to him and hands over the plate along with a critical look.

“Of course they have.” Steve makes himself chew his first bite slowly, rather than wolf down his whole plate like he wants.

Dugan retreats to the doorway and props himself against the jamb, watching him. “If you need to go get washed up later, we’ll walk you to the shower house.”

“I can go by myself,” Steve protests through a mouthful of beef.

“Sergeant’s orders.” Dugan doesn’t even have the grace to look apologetic. 

“Right. I’ll pass, then.” The food, good as it is, is starting to form a lump in Steve's gut. The toll of too little sleep and too many hours on his knees must be catching up to him. He carries his plate over to an empty bunk and perches as gently as he can on the edge. “Thanks for the chow.”

“Rogers.” Dugan takes three steps into the room and leans against the wall across from Steve. “Don’t make him work too hard, all right? It wasn’t pretty out there this time.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Steve asks, stopping with a chunk of bread halfway to his mouth.

“To be honest, kid, I’m surprised we made it back without him doing—“ Dugan sighs. “Well, without getting himself into something he couldn’t get out of.”

“He said the mission went fine.” Even as he says it, Steve realizes he knows better than to think Barnes tells him everything.

“Relatively fine.” Dugan tips his head back against the wall, which pushes his hat down further and casts a shadow over his face. 

Steve waits.

“It might have reminded him of something,” Dugan says at last.

“Like what?”

Dugan laughs, but it doesn’t sound like his usual carefree chuckle. There’s something dark and painful in the sound, like a lingering sickness. “Did you know Barnes used to carry a Bible? Little New Testament book.”

“But… he’s Jewish,” Steve says.

“You figure that out from sucking his dick, genius? Bible was the right size to keep pictures in. When he--” Dugan stops, takes off his hat, and fiddles with the rim, folding and unfolding the felt. “No one ever came back from the isolation ward, so when he left it with me I used the rest of the pages to roll more cigarettes. Kept the picture in case I survived somehow, so I could send it back to his family. Maybe write a letter to send with it. He broke us out two weeks later.”

Steve waits, barely breathing, because he doesn’t want to interrupt. This is more than anyone’s ever told him about their time in Hydra captivity, when the Howlies first met. After a few minutes, when it’s clear Dugan’s not going to say anything else, Steve decides it can’t hurt to push for more, especially if it'll help him understand why Barnes is so bent out of shape over this. “What happened to him?”

That laugh grates out again, harsh and throaty. Dugan shakes his head. “He’s better with you around. It’s not a coincidence.” He shoves off the wall with one shoulder and saunters out. After a moment, he pops his head back in to point a finger at Steve. “Don’t leave here without one of us, or you’ll be in deep shit.”  
\--

Bucky charges up to the command bunker with his hands already in fists. The same rush that buoys him in battle is singing through his body now, driving him forward.

A frowning private with his rifle held against his chest takes one look at Bucky and steps in front of the door. “You can’t go in there, Sergeant.”

Bucky pictures breaking the man’s neck, but he doesn’t do it. “I need to see Major Driscoll.”

“Well you can’t.” 

“I’m not asking.” Bucky looms closer, pushing himself right up against the rifle being clutched in a white-knuckled grip.

The private lifts his chin and doesn’t give ground. “You can’t go in there.”

“Alright.” Bucky leans back on his heels, offers a toothy smile, and holds up his hands in surrender. “No hard feelings.” 

The man relaxes and lowers his weapon.

Bucky takes a couple steps back, plants his feet in a fighting stance, and pretends to look out at the camp, at its orderly spread of tents, buildings and runways all buzzing with activity. “Hey, did you get a chance at the pro-boy who’s been hanging around?”

The man grins. “Did I? Everyone had a turn. I got to—“

Bucky slugs him, a hard right hook, and the man crumples against the cinderblock wall. Bucky charges down the three steps and completes a threat assessment. Colonel Phillips stands next to the radio bank with one baby-faced private; they’re the only two people in the room, and they’re not part of his mission objective right now. “Where's Major Driscoll?”

“Sit down, Barnes.” Phillips waves a hand at the map-strewn table.

“It’s important.” He circles the room, looking for something that will help him track his quarry; if he has to chase Driscoll down, it’ll just make the kill that much sweeter.

“It’s not more important than the time-sensitive intelligence you’ve brought me.” Phillips fixes Bucky with a searching look. “The intelligence you’re hiding behind your back, I imagine.”

“We didn’t have the chance to recover any intelligence,” he lies. “Where’s Driscoll?”

“That is disappointing, since I believe your specific orders were to recover that intelligence before you turned that base into a smoking crater.”

“Where is he?” Bucky demands.

“If you are still a member of the U.S. Army, you need to watch your tone with me, Sergeant.” Phillips fixes Bucky with an unwavering look until Bucky drops his eyes. “Alright. Now tell me what was so damn urgent you couldn’t complete your mission.”

The orderly from outside stumbles down the steps, rifle in hand, mouth bloody. “Sir,” he rasps. “Sergeant Barnes—“

“Larsen, get back out to your post. Later, we’re gonna have a little talk about when it’s appropriate to break from protocol. And Sergeant Barnes is going to offer you a sincere apology. Get out.”

Larsen smears blood off his mouth with the back of his hand, shoots Bucky a murderous look, and stomps back outside.

Phillips waves a hand at the private still clutching the radio transmitter. “Randolph, take a walk.” The boy scrambles out of the room so fast he trips on the top step. After clearing his throat, Phillips pulls out a chair at the camp table and lowers himself into it. “Sit down, Barnes.”

The pulse of his blood through his veins feels hot and tight, like if he doesn’t get the chance to hurt someone soon he might just vibrate out of his skin. “Sir—“

“Sit,” Phillips snaps.

Bucky sits.

“Major Driscoll,” Phillips says, “is on his way back to London. He failed to properly deliver orders I’d approved, and that line of thinking leads to bullshit like invading Rome when you’re supposed to be cutting off the German retreat.” Phillips crosses his arms over his chest. “I need you to hear me on this, Sergeant. There is no room for ego in this war.”

“Sir—“

Phillips steamrolls right over him. “I understand your pro-boy got the raw end of this mess. He all right?”

Bucky wants to say no, but he knows Rogers wouldn’t like it. He might have looked like a wreck, but Rogers hadn’t acted like he was hurt, and for all that he’s a contrary son of a bitch, he’s as serious about the duty of maintaining his body as any of the Howlies are about maintaining their weapons. “He will be.” 

“Glad to hear it.” Phillips nods towards the radio. “I’ve taken the liberty of having Driscoll blacklisted from all Army Prophylactic Auxiliary services. Hopefully that’ll give your boy some peace of mind.”

“Rogers. His names is Rogers,” Bucky mutters. Hearing about Driscoll’s punishment doesn’t quiet the hot roar coursing through Bucky. He wants flesh pounded under his fists, bones breaking, the raw wet squelch of blood. The violence coiled under his skin needs a way out. His fingers scrape against the surface of the table as he tries to release his clenched fist.

“Here.” Phillips pours a generous measure of something smooth and amber—scotch, maybe--into an aluminum cup and pushes it across the table. “Driscoll didn’t have time to pack his liquor.”

Bucky downs it without tasting it. It settles the churning in his gut just a little.

Phillips pours a cup for himself and sips it while watching Bucky fight the urge to knock over his chair and storm out. “You gonna tell me about the mission?”

“Found a Hydra research base,” Bucky says to the empty cup. “Blew it up.”

“And what did you find that scared you so much?”

Bucky’s eyes snap to Phillips, and he snarls, “I carried out the mission objective.”

“Son, you look like a starved dog someone’s been beating on. I can’t have you going to pieces like this.”

Bucky thinks of Rogers, maddeningly calm, glaring at him with balled fists, and pushes to his feet. “I’m not going to—“

“Sit your ass back down,” Phillips says, voice as even as if he’s chatting about the weather. He waits for Bucky to settle, then takes another sip of scotch. “You know anything about horses, Barnes?”

“I’m from Brooklyn," he says, then when he hears his tone, adds on a belated, "Sir.”

“Well, I grew up in Kentucky, where we breed some of the finest racehorses in the world.” Phillips pours more alcohol into Bucky’s cup, filling it most of the way to the top.

“All right.” As Bucky takes a long swallow of scotch, he tries, he really does, to imagine what racehorses might have to do with Hydra, but comes up with nothing. “Is this story going somewhere?”

“Thoroughbreds are the fastest, mostly highly trained horses there are. They’re the ones we’re all placing bets on. They’re the ones bringing home the prize money.”

“Okay.” Bucky gulps down another mouthful of scotch. 

“But lots of Thoroughbreds—champions, strong racers—are high strung. They get excited and nervy. Get so wound up they can blow a race, even a race they should have won easy.” Phillips raises an eyebrow. “So the trainers give them a companion pony. The pony stays with them, keeps them calm. Even goes around the track with them before races. Mutually beneficial arrangement.”

“What are you trying to say, sir?”

“We need you in this war, Barnes.” Phillips puts both elbows on the table and leans in. “I don’t know what you are, exactly, but you’re the only one of you we’ve got. You can’t be snapping in the middle of a combat zone.”

Bucky looks down at his hands, which are curled so hard around his cup there’ll be finger-sized dents. He remembers seeing blood on them and not knowing where it’d come from, looking up at Dugan calling his name and not remembering where he was. “I know that, sir.”

“From now on, you’re to keep Rogers with you in the field. If this means you take a truck to the mission site, if this means I detail an extra man to carry Rogers gear, if this means we requisition a whole string of goddamn pack mules, that’s what’s going to happen. He goes where you go.”

“Fine.” The anger that’s been fizzling out chills into fear at the memory of the furious look on Rogers’ face as Bucky had stormed away. “I mean, if he wants the assignment.”

“He’ll follow orders, and you will, too.” Phillips waits, but when Bucky doesn’t object, he leans back in his chair. “Don’t blow up my intelligence again, are we clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now, what can you tell me about the research they were doing at that base?”

“Experiments.” When Bucky says it, he can feel the heat of a blinding light on his face and a needle sliding into his vein. He reaches for the memory of Rogers’ skinny arm tucked around his chest, and the panic fades. “They were experimenting with animals. I saw some diagrams I can draw.”  
\--

Dugan’s on guard when Bucky comes trudging up the path. He’s got both hands on his rifle, scanning the grounds like they’re in a Bavarian forest and not an Allied base. He nods at Bucky. “You leave any bodies gonna need burying?”

“No. Here.” From his jacket pocket Bucky draws out a Montecristo cigar, new in its cellophane wrapper. “Major Driscoll shipped out in a hurry, left some loot. Don’t say I never gave you nothing.”

“Couldn’t think of a kinder man to steal from.” Dugan slides the cigar into his breast pocket and pats it like a proud father.

“Who’s supposed to relieve you?”

“Dernier. We worked it so you don’t have to take a watch tonight.”

“I’ll take pre-dawn. Same as always.” Bucky drove the men nearly off their feet to get here in a day; the least he can do is take a turn, especially since the nightmares aren’t likely to let him sleep tonight.

“Suit yourself.” Dugan shrugs, but he’s grinning when he turns away.

The inside of the shack is filled with the familiar sounds of exhausted soldiers: Dernier snoring, Monty scratching at his bandages, Morita muttering something unintelligible, then rolling over. Bucky’s eyes are drawn immediately to Rogers, pale limbs practically glowing in the near dark, even though he’s wearing his shorts and shirt. He’s tucked up against Gabe’s back with an arm flung over his middle. The last night he’d spent with the Howlies, he’d slept with Monty, so this is the right rotation, just as if he’d never left. 

In the back corner, Bucky’s bedroll is laid out on a bunk. He wonders who took the time to stake out a place for him, the safest one furthest from the door. He could use a bath: his hands still smell like a slaughterhouse, but he can’t face leaving again, not even to go as far as the shower house. 

It only takes a moment to strip down to his shirt and shorts and climb onto the bunk. When he pulls up the blanket, there’s a crinkle of paper. A patch of white by his hand catches the dim light, and he snatches it up. He has to hold it right up to his face to make anything out. It’s a drawing. A man with dark hair, reaching out his hands, holding onto—Rogers. Rogers in an oversized greatcoat and nothing else, lips parted and eyes wide like he wants something. Looking at Bucky like that.

A flash of pale skin darts across the room, and then Rogers is climbing into the bunk and pulling the blanket up over both of them. Bucky’s still holding the picture in both hands. “You drew this?”

Rogers nods. 

Bucky folds it along the already well-worn creases and tucks it under the bedroll for safekeeping. “I thought it was Gabe’s turn tonight.”

“He’s already asleep,” Rogers whispers.

“Yeah?” Bucky forces a smirk. “You wear him out?”

“You know I didn’t. They’ll wait for your move.”

“What about you?” Bucky makes himself hold still and not grab, not take, just wait. “What’ll you do?”

Rogers eases forward, and Bucky closes his eyes for a kiss. Instead Rogers plants his palms against Bucky’s chest, buries his face against Bucky’s neck, and breathes in. Knowing he must smell like sixteen days of road dust and combat, Bucky tries to lean away, but Rogers moves with him, tenacious in this as in everything else. 

Giving in to the inevitable, Bucky rolls onto his back, careful to keep his hands on Rogers’s ribs to drag Rogers with him, rather than on his bruised-up waist. When Rogers lands on top, legs spread wide to straddle Bucky’s hips, he draws back, his pale eyes wide, and looks down at Bucky as if he’s surprised to find himself there. 

Bucky reaches up to brush his thumb against the remnants of bruising on Rogers’ cheek. His fingers curl against Rogers’ jaw and tilt his face up to catch more of the moonlight. He doesn’t demand to know who hit Rogers, or swear he’ll never let it happen again. Instead he drinks in the flat, stubborn set of Rogers’s mouth, the strong drum of his pulse in his neck, the lean readiness of his body as he coils for motion.

“Please?” Bucky breathes, quiet as the prayers Rogers whispers before sleep. “Let me see you.” 

Bucky’s fingers drift down along Rogers' collarbone where the neck of his shirt is stretched out of shape. He traces the raised outline of a scab over what might have been a bite or just some nasty scratches. Chasing the edges of the hurt, Bucky’s fingers drift just under the shirt collar, then stop to thumb over the smooth, healed skin beyond.

Rogers’ eyes are fixed on Bucky’s face instead of his hands, moving over his features as if he can read something there. With a quick breath in, Rogers grabs the hem of his shirt and tugs it off over his head. The shirt falls to the floor, and Rogers’ hands fall to his sides, leaving his body open to Bucky’s gaze. 

When Bucky drags both hands down Rogers’ chest, tracing the bony protrusions of each rib, Rogers arches his back, pushing into Bucky’s touch. There are bruises here, too, visible only as dark outlines in the failing light. As Rogers moves and the shadows shift, the bruises do not fade, not the way Bucky’s always do. Bucky remembers the first time Rogers really noticed that difference between them, one afternoon when Rogers had rigged up a water-can shower and stood dousing Bucky, eyes widening as Bucky’s cuts and scrapes faded away as easily as the dirt washed off. Normally Bucky tries not to let anyone see what he can do; he doesn’t enjoy feeling like a display at the Stark Expo. But he doesn’t mind the way Rogers looks at him, like whether the bruises stay or go doesn’t define who he is, but is just another part of him to notice, like his blue eyes and his cut cock. 

At the narrow bridge of Rogers’ waist, Bucky fits his hands over the pattern of blood-dark fingerprints, careful to keep his touch light. His hands look absurdly large and dirty against Rogers’ pale skin. Bucky does not imagine the faces of the dozens of men who have held onto Rogers this way, intent on their pleasure and careless of the man providing it, and he certainly does not think of the satisfaction of his boot on the back of one of those men to hold him still for a head shot. 

Instead, he watches Rogers fight to keep from squirming as his cock starts to rise, tenting the front of his shorts. That’s a sight worth seeing, always: Rogers enjoying his body, letting what it can do bring him pleasure.

Bucky spreads his fingers so his pinkies nudge at the waistband of Rogers’ shorts and halts there, watching Rogers’ skinny chest rise and fall with quick, shallow breaths. “You first,” Rogers says, quick and quiet, like there’s even a chance Bucky would object. 

Bucky tugs his shirt off, then waits for Rogers to lift up so he can shove and kick his shorts out of the way. With practiced ease, Rogers hooks his fingers in the waistband of his shorts and lifts one leg at a time to shimmy out of the last piece of his uniform. He settles atop Bucky, gloriously bare. 

When Rogers feels the hot bulk of Bucky’s cock nudging against his back, his lips press together in a grim line, and he pushes up onto his knees. Bucky wonders with a jolt if Rogers prepared for this, if he cleaned up and slicked himself thinking Bucky would be eager to partake after being out in the field for a stretch. But that’s not for tonight, not until Rogers’ ready. Instead, Bucky guides Rogers down and forward, so Bucky’s cock nestles companionably against Rogers’ flat ass. At that, Rogers relaxes, and the line of his lips curves up into a half smile.

Right now, Bucky wants to see what he has to work with. He rubs his hands down the tops of Rogers’ thighs, smoothing across the coarse blond hair, then back up the insides, watching Rogers’ eyes follow every move. He does it again, dragging his hands down with the grain of the hair, then back up the sensitive skin near the crease of Rogers’ legs. This time he rubs a hand over Rogers’ sac, watching Rogers’ hips roll in little waves as a pulse of fluid escapes the tip of his cock. 

With that sight urging him on, Bucky pulls both hands up the length of Rogers’ cock, drawing a shaky exhale out of him. Bucky’s always been fascinated by how Rogers changes when he starts to lose control of himself, when he’s not just letting something happen to him, but chasing after it, wanting it. He alternates hands, drawing each one up over the length and stretching the skin over the head, so there’s never a moment when he’s not touching Steve.

Bucky watches Rogers push his hips forward into the strokes, watches his head tip back and his mouth open, watches his eyes drift closed, not worried about how he looks or what he’s meant to be doing, just enjoying the ride. Bucky’s rubbing his palm against the head and stroking his other hand up the shaft when Rogers draws up tight, clamping his thighs against Bucky’s side and squeezing his eyes shut, close and trying to hold back. 

Bucky digs both hands into the muscle of Rogers’ bony ass and drags him forward onto his chest as easily as if he weighed nothing at all. Without giving Rogers a chance to rebalance, Bucky sucks in Rogers’ leaking cock. Rogers’ eyes fly open. He holds a surprised shout behind his teeth and slaps a hand against the wall behind Bucky to brace himself. There’s one sharp, reflexive push of Rogers’ hips that stuffs his cock as far into Bucky as it will go, and then Rogers’ shaking, clapping a hand over his face to stifle his moans as he comes down Bucky’s throat. 

Rogers’ barely finished before he shuffles backwards to let Bucky breathe, but he stays hunched over gulping air with his hands braced on Bucky’s shoulders. 

Bucky takes advantage of Rogers’ distraction to reach past him and get a hand around his own dick, leaking against his belly. It only takes a few rough tugs to set him off, jizz spurting over his fingers as his muscles spasm, then relax. 

Above him, Rogers is watching him, face in shadow, silhouetted in moonlight. He ducks his head, and though he still doesn’t kiss Bucky, he pants against his neck, breath warm and alive. 

As Bucky’s heartbeat slows, the sounds of the night around them come back into focus. A quick glance shows the rest of the squad asleep, or at least pretending to be. Bucky wipes his hand on the blanket. He catches Steve, who’s starting to list to the side, and tugs him back over to rest against Bucky’s chest. 

“Gabe won’t be happy that you abandoned him,” Bucky says into the sweaty thatch of Rogers’ hair.

“I’ll make it up to him,” Rogers mutters against Bucky’s shoulder.

Bucky’s muscles feel liquid and heavy, like he could drain right through the bunk and sink into the ground. He could feel like this every night, he thinks, if he never has to leave Rogers behind. His hand tightens against Rogers’ shoulder as he remembers Rogers’ blank, all-business expression when he offered himself to Bucky in his little one-man pro station. 

“You know,” he says, quiet so he doesn’t wake the others. “You’re not stuck with us or them. If you want a different posting, something nice… Paris. You liked Paris.” Bucky has not the slightest idea how he could get Phillips to reassign Steve, not after today’s scene. But Bucky will find a way if it means giving Rogers what he wants.

Rogers pushes himself up, putting Bucky at arm’s length and pinning him with a measuring gaze. “Is staying with the Howlies an option?”

Bucky wants to say it’s the only option, that Bucky doesn’t want him to leave, that he’s not certain Phillips is wrong about how close he is to the edge. Instead, he makes himself say, “Yes.”

“Then I’m where I want to be, thanks.” Rogers drops back down against Bucky’s chest and tucks his arms around Bucky’s sides. 

The last of the fear that Phillips’ scotch had quelled untangles itself from Bucky’s insides. He lets his eyes close, to rest for a moment, just until Rogers falls asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to all your commentators for being so supportive during the writing! Your thoughts and encouragement definitely helped get this puppy done. 
> 
> **Historical Notes**  
> [The Liberation of Rome:](http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/italian-campaign) In May of ’44, General Mark Clark disobeyed orders to cut off the retreat of the German Tenth Army and instead marched into Rome, a strategically unimportant city, presumably because “liberating Rome” is a cool thing to say you accomplished. It’s probably due to this decision that the Italian campaign dragged on so long (until the end of April ’45), and Allied casualties increased sharply.
> 
> Cigars: Check out [the propaganda](http://cigarhistory.info/Cigar-box_THEMES/War.html) used to explain to Americans at home why cigars were in short supply because of the needs of overseas troops: “He fights the Axis, but now he relaxes!” 750 millison cigars were allocated to the military from cigar manufacturers (about 30% of production). Here about halfway down there’s a photo of a Navy pilot handing out cigars after a successful mission. For more than you ever want to know about manufacturing cigars, check out the [National Cigar History Museum.](http://cigarhistory.info/Cigar_History/History_1916-1962.html)
> 
> Cleanliness: If you want to know what WWII showers were like, [look at these historical photos of naked soldiers.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsRHUwtSQRo) Do it for America!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Paradigm Shift](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8290540) by [EvilDime](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EvilDime/pseuds/EvilDime)




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